2013 BIM Diary

2013 has disappeared in a blink of an eye.

At the end of 2012 I did a little blog post looking back through the year at some of the 2012 highlights. So one year on, the same again. Please find the highlights of the year from my point of view...

1. January - NBS Green BIM Conference

Waterhouse and the wedge

We put on the third of our free (and standing room only) BIM conferences in association with New London Architecture (NLA). The theme of this particular conference was looking at both BIM and sustainability. Speakers from Arup Associates, Capita Symonds, Architype, UK Government, RLB, BRE and NBS put on a great event to start the year.
January also saw the publication of the joint NBS/OpenBIM COBie report that may be downloaded for free.

2. February - BDTwitter100

BD100 Twitter-folk

I was absolutely delighted to be listed as one of the top 100 tweeterers in the built environment by BDOnline. Also made it into the top 10 for BIM alongside Light, Stodgell, Store, Farrell, Austin, Charlton, Jackson, Philp and Klaschka.
- StephenHamilNBS



3. March - National BIM Survey 2013

National BIM Survey

March saw the results from our third national BIM survey get published. Headline figures included (a) less than half of the industry being aware of what level-2 BIM was, (b) Only 6% of those using BIM have regretted the decision, (c) 75% agreeing BIM is the future and (d) a rise in BIM adoption from 2011 to 2013 from 13% to 39% in the UK.
I also had the pleasure of doing what is becoming an annual presentation to the London Revit User Group which is always pretty lively in the question and answer session and good discussions in pub after the event [post 1 / post 2].
...and squashed in the middle was ecobuild - many of the NBS/RIBA village presentations are on the web to view for free.

4. April - CIC Growth through BIM Report

Growth through BIM

In April Richard Saxon published his Growth through BIM report on behalf of CIC/Cabinet Office. To summarise some of the key points (a) UK is/can continue to be a world-leader in BIM, (b) we can continue to grow in terms of an exporter of professional services, (c) UK manufacturers must embrace and lead with BIM, (d) BIM means greener construction in addition to cheaper construction, (e) the 'Digital Build Britain' intiative will transform the construction industry, (f) the need for more off-site manufacturing.

5. May - RIBA Plan of Work 2013

50 years in the making

The new 2013 publication is the most radical change to the RIBA Plan of Work since its launch 50 years ago in 1963. The new plan is aligned with the unified industry stages as agreed through the Construction Industry Council. It covers all forms of procurement and project sizes and it integrates sustainable design and BIM processes. More recently the free RIBA Plan of Work 2013 Toolbox was also published (October). At NBS we did the software development work around the new plan and supporting toolbox.
May also saw two top BIM conferences - BIM Show Live and also Dublin - Meet the Experts.

6. June - BIM for the Terrified

Terrified about BIM?

The CIC Growth through BIM Report had highlighted the need for manufacturers to embrace BIM. In June, NBS teamed up with the Construction Products Association to produce the free BIM for the Terrified publication aimed at manufacturers. The report looked into (a) what BIM is, (b) the background to BIM, (c) what manufacturers need to do, (d) open standards and (e) BIM and FM. It also contained a number of case studies from leading manufacturers such as Kingspan Insulation, Glazing Vision and Kalzip.
Also in June - at NBS we released the latest version of our plug-in for Autodesk Revit.

7. July - Construction News award winners

The double

In July at NBS we were absolutely delighted to win not one, but two Construction News Awards for BIM. The first was the Government sponsored 'Digital Built Britain Award' for NBS Create. The second was the 'BIM Initiative of the Year Award' for NBS National BIM Library. A nice quote from the judges was "NBS will become the industry standard location for reliable quality controlled information. NBS has shown real leadership in helping drive UK BIM adoption and consistently makes BIM accessible across the supply chain".
We also had some great fun taking part in the Singapore 48 hour BIM challenge with our friends up at BIM Academy - 4 blog posts on this [Post 1, Post 2, Post 3 and Post 4].

8. August - Everyone was on holiday

9. September - 40 years of NBS

Computers in the old days

In September we celebrated 40 years of NBS (1973-2013). theNBS.com/NBS40 documents our history with nostalic imagery and video. My favourite part of the 40 year history is the original NBS Specification Manager promotional video (from FaulknerBrown's offices) in 1990. By all accounts this was the first construction software in the UK on Windows 3.
Also this month there was a BE2Award for our Marketing Team for their use of social media and the Internet in their activities.

10. October - BIM International

Probably the best
diagram in the world

The highlight of October for me had to be being invited over to Denmark to speak alongside Arup, Laing O'Rourke and Foster+Partners at their 'BIM in the UK' conference.
October also saw the launch of the NBS plug-in for Vectorworks which we were delighted about. In addition to ArchiCAD, Revit and Vectorworks we are working on more collaboration plug-ins - so hopefully watch this space in 2014.

11. November - NBS Live

NBS Live

NBS Live was our first 'paid-for' conference. The conference split into four main themes - I chaired the BIM Room. It was a super event at the Business Design Centre in London with over 250 delegates. We hope to run more conferences throughout of 2014 with our official media partner RIBA Journal - so please keep an eye on our websites for more details on future events.
In November, we also won one final award - this time it was at the Construction Computing Awards and the prize was for the 'Team of the Year'. The fact that this went to our Research and Development team (the team I have been part of since 1999) was a very, very nice way to end the year.

12. December - Think BIM

Philp Leeds

The December ThinkBIM conference in Leeds always seems to be the final event of the year. With mssrs Philp and Klaschka getting on the train from London to come 'up North' to speak it was a good way to end the year. There was also time during the event for Rob Jackson to present from Autodesk University via Skype.




So another busy year. Thanks to everyone who regularly visits the blog. Thanks also to those that follow on Twitter. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - All the very best in 2014.